Do people actually use exercise equipment in parks?

I walk by Sally Bird Parkette often, probably about once a week for the last six years. It’s a small sliver of green space on a single skinny lot between two houses. There’s a flower garden. There’s a bench. Even a water fountain. And there’s also what appears to be three forest-green torture devices.

Well, it depends on your definition of torture.

When this parkette was redone in 2010, three outdoor exercise stations were included. I’ve heard this was based on community feedback that said people would rather have something for adults to do than children, since there was a number of playgrounds already nearby.

Only problem is, as far as I can tell, no one uses these things except for teenagers who sometimes hang out there to smoke. I mean, at least they’re getting used.

It got me thinking: do people actually use exercise equipment in parks, or is it like the equivalent of a gym membership. We like having the option. We say we’re going to use it. But then we decide to eat ice cream and watch Stranger Things on Netflix instead (guys, that show is really good–stop reading this and go watch it.)

Turns out I’m not the only one wondering this. A team of researchers at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta did a study looking at the use of exercise equipment in parks. They observed people in the parks and spoke with people about their use of the park.

What did they find?

They found the exercise equipment was used by only 2.7% of park goers (this follows with other studies that found between 1.9% and 5.5% use).

The interesting thing though is that when they spoke to people to ask them about their use, 22% of people said they used the equipment monthly. It’s our tendency as humans to want to appear a little bit more virtuous than we really are. “Oh, how often do I go to the gym? Oh about three times a week usually.” Uh huh, sure you do, Jim. Sure.

The other interesting part is that people just liked knowing the equipment was there. They “perceived” the equipment to be beneficial to health, but as the researchers wrote, there was a difference between “potential benefits as opposed to actual benefits.”

This is like the equivalent of having broccoli on the menu at a restaurant that serves fatty hamburgers and then looking at the menu and saying “Oh, it’s good they serve broccoli. That’s healthy. I’ll have two hamburgers, please.”

So how to turn those perceived benefits into actual benefits?

Turns out the whole Field of Dreams if-you-build-it-they-will-come scenario doesn’t really work out to well with exercise equipment. What does work then? Well for one: programming. Trainers provided on-site to show people how to use the equipment. Classes and lessons. This is what many of the people interviewed in the study requested.

Because, as we all know, a gym opening up down the street from us doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to use it. Sometimes we need that extra external push of a trainer yelling into our face to turn that potential benefit, into an actual benefit.